John Cornyn opposes latest version of DREAM Act, calling it a “political football”

Texas Sen. John Cornyn criticized the DREAM Act Tuesday at the measure’s first-ever Senate hearing, calling it a move that could spur illegal immigration and fraud in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform.

The legislation, first proposed in 2001 but revised since, would give a path to citizenship for youthful immigrants brought to the U.S. by their parents before age 15 if they complete at least two years of college or military service.

Applicants would have to show they lived in the country for at least five years at the time of the law’s enactment, and demonstrate good moral character.

“I have been a supporter of a version of the DREAM act for many years,” said Cornyn, R-San Antonio, who voted for the bill in 2003. But he added that the legislation offers too few protections against fraud and could lead to “chain migration’’ if it is not paired with comprehensive immigration reform.

“Were we to pass this bill as a stand-alone bill without addressing the rest of our broken immigration system, I believe it is far less likely that we would ever get to the other issues in our broken system,” he said.

A version of the bill, formally entitled the Relief and Education for Alien Minors, failed in the Senate after a filibuster in December. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sponsored the failed bill and chaired Tuesday’s committee to discuss re-introducing the legislation.

At the Tuesday hearing, White House cabinet officials, undocumented teens and immigration activists from across the country joined Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in praising the measure _ even as Republican committee members and an immigration official criticized it.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan led a group of high-level Obama administration officials who testified on behalf of the legislation, including Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Dr. Clifford Stanley, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

Jacob Vigdor, a Duke University public policy professor, said the proposal has little chance to win approval in either the Republican House or a closely divided Senate.

Duncan called the measure “common-sense legislation.” He said it would encourage undocumented students to stay in school, obtain advanced degrees and use their education to fill jobs that could improve the U.S. economy.

He said the Congressional Budget office has estimated that citizens naturalized under the DREAM Act could generate $1.4 billion for the federal government between 2011 and 2020 and would provide needed workers for science, technology, mathematics and engineering fields.

Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, was one of the cabinet members to testify at the hearing.

Napolitano said the legislation would help Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials by taking productive non-citizens out of the deportation queue so that the agency can focus on removing high-priority criminals.
And Stanley said the act would create a new pool of resources for the military, which anticipates a recruiting shortfall as the economy recovers and the U.S. population ages.

But Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, joined Cornyn in opposing the legislation, saying while the measure could generate federal revenue in the long run, it could result in large budget deficits in the short run.

And Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, said the bill could burden local and state governments, which subsidize the less expensive tuitions at the state and community colleges immigrants are likely to attend.

Cornyn called the act’s attempted passage in 2010 “political football in a political stunt.”
“It had all of the hallmarks of a cynical effort to use the hopes and dreams of these young people as a political wedge in the run-up to the 2012 election,” he said.